


Stitches

by Aithilin



Category: Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle
Genre: Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-11
Updated: 2016-05-11
Packaged: 2018-06-07 17:18:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6816367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aithilin/pseuds/Aithilin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She wasn't used to the work of another world's pattern</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stitches

“Princess! When did you have the time to do all this?”

The patterns weren’t particularly difficult to stitch. The embroidery not as fine or detailed as what she was used to. She didn’t need to focus so much on eyes or feathers or scales or petals like this; her stitches simply needed to be neat and lined correctly, evenly. And there was much more space to work. The patterns were different, wider, simpler, took more space than she had thought possible for the art she was used to. 

The Celesian patterns— long, sweeping, curling designs— were a challenge. They went against the art she knew— against the work she had done before. There was no delicate detailing that she could see at first, no depth or life to give to the design.

Tomoyo loved a challenge. 

The stitching was still delicate, precise, perfectly aligned. But she had to step back from it every so often to see the real pattern to it— to see the bird that she knew so well from the stories of Japan cast in a whole new light. She had Fai’s drawing— put down in ink and with brush as he had practised his calligraphy— pinned to the wall in front of her work space. The picture next to the stand where she kept the work when she needed a rest from it. Where she could hang the cloth and embroidery and stand back to see the whole image for the details. 

Kurogane had supplied the drawing. Picked out the cloth and threads, sent the wrong shades back to the merchants.

He had agreed, after a long battle, to let reds and golds seep into the blues and silvers. 

“It’s this blue. It has to be this one.”

“But I’m sure some gold could help—”

“No.”

“The silver then.”

“Just the blue.”

“You’re so stubborn.”

“Fine. Do what you want, but it has to be this shade.”

Tomoyo liked the idea of the gift, and the challenge of the work, the strangeness of the design. She had plenty of long hours to think it over as she worked. 

This style— the sweeping, looping, curling Celesian style— was very much like Fai himself. She had always thought that looking to closely at the details of the man would lose the whole picture. That the smile, the laugh, the brightness of his eyes and ease of his movements, were presented too carefully to represent the whole of him. 

She liked to step back to see him. 

She liked to think that he was Kurogane’s opposite— that one would have to look for the details to see Kurogane in whole. To see his kindness and intelligence and curiosity and love with the same sort of examination as one saw the details in the careful patterns of an embroidered cloth. 

It had occurred to her, two weeks before the event, that she could have had the image carefully dyed into the silks instead. 

Fau’s reaction had been worth it. His confusion and smile, the reverential touch to the silks as he examined the kimono stretched out in display. She had seen his eyes take in the image he had drawn on scrap paper— the castaway doodle Kurogane had saved from the fire. The guide Tomoyo had used. 

“It’s not quite done, Fai-sama.” She had always acknowledged his position,his role, his status in her court if not his own. “I still have some details around the edge.”

“It’s beautiful.”

“Will you wear it?”

“Of course!”

Kurogane had been forbidden from seeing it finished (no doubt he had slipped into the room anyway, scrutinising ever twist and curl and curve of the pattern) after his tantrum over the accessories. Fai had barely taken his eyes from it as Tomoyo finished off the details with him— as he wrote out a spell for love and long life for her to stitch into the design. 

She supposed a wedding outfit was the least she could do for the pair of them. And it was good practice for Sakura’s later.


End file.
